FHM: Actress On Racist Cover

The men’s magazine FHM has had to pull its cover on the Philippines FHM after the cover caused controversy over suggestions of racism. The March edition of the magazine which would have been coming out in the Philippines featured popular actress surrounded by darker skinned models.

The actress Bela Padilla posed with the models and was accompanied on the cover with the slogan ‘stepping out of the shadows’. This has caused outrage and has led to the magazine being heavily criticised, the bulk of which has come from social media networking sites. A large quantity of complaints came directly from darker skinned Filipinos after the cover was posted online.

For Him Magazine

FHM started in the UK in 1985, and was originally called ‘For Him Magazine’, the title was changed in 1994. In the time since then, it has gone on to become a mainstay in the market all over the world.

The cover which was released on Facebook was flooded with people wanting to say that the cover was racist, which is hard to argue against.

One of the readers of the post on the site responded by saying: “Did you guys not sense how racist this concept was?”

The reality of the matter is that this has clearly been a concept that has found its way to becoming realised on a cover and then shown to the world, and throughout no one sensed how the slogan and image would be perceived.

Twitter also came into the mix when the topic began trending, with users saying in the restricted number of characters unique to the site ‘shame on FHM Philippines’. The magazine has also been accused of being ‘horrendously backward’.

Into the spotlight

FHM have come out and apologised for the cover, saying that they would be changing the cover image. While they have apologised for the cover they have also said they understand the problem to be a confusion of the previous covers execution.

The little known Filipino star has been thrown into the spotlight as a result, featuring on BBC News and no doubt other news broadcasts around the world. With her name even trending on Twitter.

The Philippines has the 45th largest economy in the world and is also one of the most populated, they have a gross domestic product of $216 billion. The nations’ exports precious metals and electronic components, whilst trading with countries from all over the globe.

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